About
The team behind Depth-Map.com.
A small team of 3D printing and laser engraving makers. We built the tool we wanted to use ourselves.
3D printing · Fiber laser · Depth Anything V3 · Real tests
What we built
Depth-Map.com turns a photograph into a 16-bit grayscale depth map and a closed STL. The depth estimate is one server request, powered by a metric Depth Anything V3 model. After that reply, every slider move — depth, base, long side, invert, gamma, background flatten, crop — rewrites the field in the browser without another model call.
The output is a real 16-bit PNG (65,536 grayscale levels, 10 mm full-scale mapping) and a closed, manifold STL (a displaced top, a flat floor at z = 0, four walls). Both formats slice in Bambu Studio, PrusaSlicer, Cura, or Lychee without a repair step, and the PNG imports cleanly into LightBurn 3D Sliced for fiber-laser engraving on brass, silver, stainless, aluminum, and copper.
Why we built it
Three things were missing in the existing tools when we started in early 2026:
- True 16-bit output. Several competing tools write an 8-bit depth map and upscale to 16-bit on export. On a 3 mm engrave, the 256 discrete levels burn visible topography lines across brass or steel. We verified the problem with ImageMagick (
identify -verbose) and side-by-side engraves before deciding to build. - A direct maker export. The two leading tools (SculptOK at $75 a month, Depth-R at $26.90 a month) either keep the mesh inside their own editor or export in a format that needs a repair step before slicing. We wanted one step from photograph to a slicer- or laser-ready file.
- Honest pricing. Depth estimation is a single model call. We priced Pro at $19 a month and Studio at $49 a month so the economics are closer to the unit cost than to what the market would currently bear.
What we test on
Every sample file linked from this site was printed or engraved on real hardware before we published it. The physical kit:
- 3D printers: Bambu Lab X1C, Prusa MK4. Both used for lithophane and bas-relief samples.
- Fiber laser: 50 W JPT MOPA. Used for every LightBurn 3D Sliced parameter in the for LightBurn matrix.
- Slicers: Bambu Studio 2.1, PrusaSlicer 2.8, Cura 5.7 — the three settings the Last tested line under each tool page banner refers to.
- Verification: ImageMagick 7.1 and Photoshop 2025 both read the 16-bit PNG as grayscale, 16 bits per channel.
About the team
Start with the lion sample.
The lion medallion on the homepage is a real file. Open the workbench and the 16-bit PNG plus closed STL are already there for you to download without logging in.